Hacker News Reader

Comment by elephanlemon | Hacker News Reader

1) Always bolt down your safe.

2) Most “safes” are not actual safes but “residential security containers.” A real safe will be UL rated and one this size (guessing it was large, didn’t see any pictures) weigh in the thousands of pounds.

View on HN

I think the larger takeaway is that the level of protection needs to scale up with the value of the contents, and he unfortunately did not keep up. The value of those games has gone into the millions recently, so this setup was not sufficient anymore to withstand the level of attack.

For example, if what you have moves into hundreds of millions of dollars (not the case here) then any safe is no longer sufficient, you need to move to a vault and armed guards.

The threat model for (2) is really more of a fire thing if I understand correctly. Which does make a lot of sense for most people. I’m pretty confident I will never be burgled. I could see my house burning down.

Almost all gun safes are at this level, and California DOJ just released the home addresses of thousands of legal gun owners. The threat model for those people has dramatically changed, but unfortunately the barriers to entry for a 'real' safe are quite high (cost, weight).

I expect a statistically significant bump in stolen guns hitting the streets directly attributable to CA DOJ's incompetence.

Why would you prefer to rob someone who has a gun? A gun in a locked safe is hardly a good target compared to the typical valuables. It’s also likely to be deep within the house in a harder to find spot. And, they have a gun.

Because gun safes aren't actually safes according to insurance companies. They're easily defeated with a crowbar or a saw, and generally light enough that criminals can just take them (if they aren't bolted down) and defeat them somewhere else if need be.

These aren't currency/jewelry-grade safes with relocking plates and the like. They're thin metal that's just about good enough to keep a child out and that's it.

Re: someone with a gun — just wait until the person goes to work. Many burglaries happen in the middle of the day (like the one my family experienced).

In America, a home robbery including injury to the habitants, is more common that a whole house fire. I looked this up years ago when discussing gun ownerships with friends, refuting why they think gun ownership is for the paranoid, but yet they all have fire insurance on their homes.

“America” is as helpful as “Europe”. The “average” experience is completely irrelevant to your local situation. For many Americans, adding a gun to the home will net increase the danger to its own family members on a statistical basis.

A gun is a pretty terrible means to prevent burglary too. Unless you’re gonna make it really publically clear that you’re a gun nut, it does nothing to act as a deterrent to potential burglars. A simple security system or a dog is often plenty. Conditioned on you being burgled anyway, the probability that you can safely get your gun and load it and defend yourself is pretty abysmal for most means of safe storage. Most burglaries are also just someone getting in, grabbing a handful of crap and leaving. A safe is typically a pretty good defense against this tbh.

Speaking as a gun owner and someone who has been burgled.

The stat I gave was for the home owner being injured during the burglary. This is not even talking about all the burglaries when no one is home or when they run off when they realize someone is home (and could have a gun). But definitely, if someone doesn't live near a big city like SF or San Jose or Berkeley, they probably don't need a gun as much as people in those towns. But it's still probably a good idea just in case. Without one, you just have to hope it never happens to you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com